


(Not Alone) Through All the Ages

by Drag0nst0rm



Series: Through All the Ages [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Everyone thinks Elrond and Elros are Elured and Elurin, Fix-It, Gen, Open but Optimistic Ending, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Elrond had intended to sail to the Undying Lands.He had not intended to find himself, still in his adult form, back in the nightmare of his childhood.





	(Not Alone) Through All the Ages

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Silmarillion. Originally on Tumblr.

Elros waits until they’ve been left alone in a room by flustered attendants before he turns to Elrond and raises an eyebrow. “Elf-man and elf-rider, really? It’s better than Nereb and Dornif, I suppose, but as code names go, I expected better. Also, which one am I supposed to be?”

Elrond is still just trying to get over the fact that his brother is here. Aged and mortal, but here. “Whichever you like,” he manages to say.

“I’ll be elf-man, then, for the sake of the irony. How did you even come up with those?”

“They’re my sons’ names,” Elrond says quietly, and Elros’s eyes go wide.

“I’m an uncle?” he says gleefully. “You got married? To whom?”

“Celebrian,” Elrond says somewhat wistfully. He had thought that at long last he was on his way to see her. Instead, he is here, in the nightmare of the past although admittedly with the consolation of his brother. He hopes this isn’t what happens to all mortals when they die, and he also rather hopes that his choice hadn’t been an illusion and, incidentally, that he’s not dead. “She’s Galadriel’s daughter,” he clarifies for Elros. “We have a daughter too. Arwen. She chose your path.”

Elros is gaping at him. “Galadriel is your mother-in-law?”

To be fair, that was rather how Elrond had reacted when that news had first hit him.

“And your daughter became mortal,” Elros says, eyes softening. “That must have been difficult. How long ago … ?”

“Recently,” Elrond says glumly. “She fell in love. With one of your descendants,” he adds because it only seems fair that Elros knows that this is also a little bit his fault.

Elros chokes. “How many generations down are we talking?” 

“Sixty,” Elrond tells him. He’s worked this out. First cousins sixty times removed is not actually incest, although he’s not sure anyone’s ever actually codified that. There’s never been a need to.

Elros sits down. “So it’s been a long time then,” he says softly. 

Elrond’s throat is tight. He sits down very close next to Elros so that they’re touching. He needs to, suddenly. “Yes.”

“Is he nice, at least? My fifty-eight greats grandson?”

“You’d be proud of him,” Elrond tells him, because it’s true. “I am.” And then, because that requires at least a bit of explanation, “I fostered him. Several of his ancestors too.”

“That must have hurt,” Elros says gently.

He doesn’t actually mean to say it but somehow, “Not as badly as losing you,” slips out anyway like he’s in his fifties again and not a grown elf who knows how to hold his tongue.

Elros looks down helplessly. “I’m sorry.”

“You made the right choice,” Elrond says wearily. Elros was well suited for life as a Man.

“Not for that,” Elros says, waving a hand. “I’m sorry you got hurt.” He grins a little. “My condolences for your loss?”

“I don’t think you can say that when you’re the loss in question,” Elrond says dryly, but it helps.

“Did you ever find them?” Elros asks after a long minute of silence.

There is only one them he could mean.

“I found Maglor. His hand was burned from touching the Silmaril.” Elrond can see it all vividly, playing out all over again. “He was - not well.”

“And Maedhros?” Elros is tense, afraid to know.

“Maedhros - Maedhros must have been even less well.”

“He didn’t survive the burn?”

Elrond laughs bitterly. “Not from the lava, no.” He sees Elros’s confusion and explains. “He jumped.”

Elros’s jaw clenches. “We have to stop that,” he says when he can talk. “If we can stop the attack at Sirion - we save the city, we save baby us, we save them the guilt, and he doesn’t jump. Easy.”

“Except for the stopping the attack part,” Elrond points out.

“We know what would stop the attack,” Elros says, like it’s that easy.

“Even if we could get them the Silmaril, then what? Help won’t came from the Valar unless Earendil gets that Silmaril,” Elrond says.

Elros frowns. “Maybe we could convince them to give it right back?”

Elrond stares at him.

“Okay, that plan needs work,” Elros admits.

“Well, it’s better than suggesting we try to pull a Luthien to get the other two from Morgoth,” Elrond grants him.

Elros, his brother, who he loves and has missed terribly and will therefore not strangle, says thoughtfully, “Although if we could get all three, the Oath would be gone, so maybe they really would be willing to give one up - “

Apparently, being mortal has made his brother hopelessly optimistic. Elrond can’t imagine how.

. . .

If they were alone, it would be easy to miss the fact that they are Peredhel. No one would know that Elros has exceeded even the usual Numenorean lifespan; no one would think to look for Elrond’s not quite Elvish view of things.

As it is, they are, despite how Elros has changed, quite obviously twins and quite obviously not either both Man or both Elf. That really leaves only one option.

And there are not many Peredhel, and their age is difficult to determine - Elrond appearing ageless, and Elros’s aging jumbled both by being Numenorean and by being half-elvish - and they bear a striking resemblance to Elwing. They could be the right age if people assume Elwing has already chosen the Elves and that Elros chose otherwise early. And if they are not Elwing’s lost brothers, the question comes, who are they?

The Elvish community in Middle Earth is simply not big enough to hide an oddity like them for as long as they appear to have lived. Either they are the lost twins, or they are some creatures of Morgoth, or, of course, both.

But they do not act like creatures of Morgoth. They speak of hope, not despair, they do not bear his scars, and they do not flinch from the Silmaril.

No one outright asks.

They are spared the trouble of deciding whether or not to lie.

They see themselves sometimes. Not frequently, as their younger selves are naturally being kept away from the potentially dangerous strangers, but they see them.

There is an uncomfortable moment when Elros gets the two of them mixed it up.

Thankfully, their younger selves are used to it, but Elrond can’t help brining it up later.

“You called yourself by the wrong name.”

“It’s not like we had a lot of mirrors growing up,” Elros says defensively. “I don’t have memorized what I looked like back then.”

Elrond thinks of the way Elros peers at writing now. “And your eyes are going.”

“And my eyes are going,” Elros admits. “I suppose I could have tried to get a feel for his mind, but that’s almost impossible for me now, and it seemed a little paradoxical to boot.” He sighs. “And you’re not even listening to me anymore, are you? You’re off in your head trying to figure out something for my eyes.”

“I have some thoughts,” Elrond allows.

“You’re worse than my children,” Elros grumbles, and they go on.

 

Elwing circles them with tentative hope, and they watch her do so with barely acknowledged hope of their own.

Mainly, they watch how she interacts with their younger selves and resist the urge to ask questions it would not be fair to expect her to answer.

 

They are running out of time to save Sirion if they intend to do so, and they still do not know what to do.

“We cannot let them die for what we think will be the greater good,” Elrond finally says. “To do so would be wrong. I do not accept that the only way to win this war was a third kinslaying prompting the Silmaril being brought to Earendil, and surely we were not sent here to change nothing.”

“They could be intending us to fight,” Elros says with a grimace, and Elrond tries to imagine seeing Sirion fall through an adult’s eyes. Imagines facing off against Maedhros and Maglor and being the one to send them to what he prayed would be Mandos’s Halls or being sent himself and knowing that he was only another faceless tragedy in their eyes.

He will fight if he has to, but he cannot imagine the aftermath.

Elros shakes his head. “No, you’re right. We have to take this one problem at a time. Sirion is in danger. Once we solve that, we can work on the next problem.”

Elrond doesn’t know if they can solve this problem, but they can at least try.

 

Their impassioned council tips the balance. When Maedhros sends one last message, Elwing agrees to send ambassadors to negotiate the return of the Silmaril in exchange for protection from Morgoth’s forces.

Elrond and Elros are not part of this group, but they do manage to get themselves sent with the group that finally delivers the jewel.

 

The meeting is not quite what Elrond was expecting.

He had forgotten, foolishly, that the Ambarussa would still be alive. 

He had underestimated just how he would feel upon seeing Maglor and Maedhros again.

And he had not expected to spend the speeches sneaking looks over at them and watching the blood slowly drain out of Maedhros’s face.

He can see the impatience on the Feanorians’s faces, so it’s with relief that he watches Elros step forward before yet another speech can be made. Elros has been entrusted with the casket, and he opens it carefully, letting the light blaze forth, before taking it by the chain and offering it chain first to Maedhros, who is at this point in time still in the habit of wearing gloves to make his prosthetic less obvious. It is the best protection they can provide - two layers of removal and a gift freely given, but Maedhros still flinches.

Elrond starts forward immediately, every healing song that eased Maglor at all already springing to mind, but then Maedhros hands it to Maglor, who holds it with nothing but delight before passing it to one of the Ambarussa.

None of them cry out, unless he counts Maglor taking up his harp and beginning a song of rejoicing Elrond has never heard before.

Surely it can not have burned Maedhros and not the others?

But Maedhros’s eyes are still improbably locked on his his own hand, not the Silmaril, and his gaze flicks to Elros every so often.

His hand, that Elros had briefly touched.

Elrond has millennia of wisdom telling him to pay attention to that, but it’s hard when he sees the joy on Maglor’s face and the lack of despair in Maedhros’s eyes.

It does occur to him to wonder - if he ever makes it back, will Elrond mean anything to Maglor besides the prince of a people he was happy he never had to destroy? Or will Elros go on to the mortal afterlife and leave Elrond alone to remember his double span of the elder days?

But he could not help his foster-father the first time, and he can help him now, so he will not let his selfishness destroy what they have achieved here. The fear can wait; the joy will not.

 

There is a celebration to follow, of course. Maedhros spends it asking careful questions and avoiding his brothers.

It is with rising, mingled, fear and hope that he follows the twins out of the loud feasting and into the quiet of the passage leading to their assigned chamber and calls, as he had so many years before, “Elured? Elurin?” For the first time in years, his voice shakes.

They have spent the past months turning whenever someone starts saying “El - “ so that they do not forget to turn for their assumed names.

They spent years before that responding to a wide range of names beyond their own - each other's, frequently, on very bad nights, Ambarussa’s, the general terms of “the twins” or the “children - "

And, yes, after nightmares or injuries or drugs for the injuries to Maedhros calling them by those names in much that tone.

Automatically, they turn.

Maedhros has to grip a window ledge to keep himself standing, and the moonlight is just strong enough for them to exchange almost panicked looks as they haven’t since they were boys.

This possibility, they haven’t planned for.


End file.
